Well, I've got ahold of the source for the shop, and was wondering if you (you as in the dumpshockers) would like a new build following rigger 3 rules. If yes, I'd probably port it to C++ (as it will be the language I will be using the most) But before I start any work and get the headaches involved with debugging and recoding it, I want to know how much interest there would be for this.

All original credits go to the original author of the shop, all I'd be doing is updating it to current rigger 3 standards, and maybe adding a little XML functionality, so the community would be one step closer to having a set of tools to build everything they could want for their characters/campaign.

This is something I've been dieing to see happen for a long long time. I'd be willing to help anywhere I could. I don't know how to program at all, but I can update DAT files (I've done a lot of updates for NSRCG's DAT files).

I had thought of doing something like this myself... and am also a C++er... and more than willing to do data entry...

I really like the riggers so this is a good project and at the very least you would get bug reports from me

-MIke R.

Do it! It'll save us the headache of all those nasty calculations.

Please post it as a project on sourceforge. I'll help out when I can.

Any ideas as to how hard this project will be and/or how long it will take to complete? This is something I've been dieing to see for a real long time.

It'll take a while, as currently I have the programming skills (for PC at least, I can program micros like nobodys business.) of a wet paper bag. I know lots are waiting for this, and I'm going to poke at the code after I upgrade my computer and see what I'm going to need to fix after porting it to C breaks it. But its a learning experiance, and while I can get help from my instructors in some areas, I'm more or less on my own for learning C++.

Rules for riggers are the most complicated thing SR has ever produced. Having a program that at least does the vehicle construction part would be veeery cool.

Yeah, do it. I do know C++, but not much really (1 year of learning), so I probably could not help.

I might be able to help out. I have 6+ years of C++ experience as well as a lot of interface design, but I'm already working on three things at the moment. Let me know if you get really stuck and I can help out perhaps or if you give me some time, I might have a more open schedule in a month or so.

I would like to offer words of encouragement, but that is about it. My programming skills (the little I had) have long since faded into a memory. Again please do this, I love riggers and the rainforest, I would hate to see any more tress die because I want a new car in SR.

Thanks for the offer of your assistance Dashifen, the big ol' upgrade is probably going to happen in the near (read: hour or two) future and then once I'm back up and running i'll see what I can do to begin the process.

Any updates on this project?

Alright people. I downloaded a copy of The Shop (the old R2 version) today and took a look at it. I don't see where it really needs to have the source code updated. The only thing that needs any changes is the DAT files, which are just plain text and putting the data where it needs to go. I'm going to go ahead and get started on it myself, but if anyone wants to help out, let me know and we can break up the DAT into pieces.

Much joy is had by all in this camp. There are no programmers in the group here, but several riggers who are anxiously waiting to field test the program. A couple have voiced pleas for drone rigger and security rigger support. I can't imagine why.

Well, it looks like it is going to take more than just updating the DATs to get The Shop to work for Rigger 3. I need the source code to be edited with the new mark-ups and whatnot. Anyone out there that knows VB want to take on the task?

I wouldn't mind taking a peek at the source and seeing if it's something I can put some time into. No guarantees right now, since work tends to demand a good 60+ hours a week, and I'm just starting back into a regular gaming schedule, but depending on how the source looks, I might just have enough spare time to fiddle with it.

Plus, it should get me back in the swing of running SR -- I haven't run Shadowrun in over two years...not counting the Stay-Puft debacle during "Food Fight" last year...

I haven't programmed in VB in a while, but I do occaisionally work in VBScript on ASP webpages. I can make the changes you need, just send me the source, let me know what version of VB I need to install and tell me what changes you need made, and I'll do it for you.
-Mike
bombadil<at>oldforest.net

Thanks for taking up the mantle grey, classes are eating up 200% of my spare time (it spilled over into time for sleep.) Since christmas, i've had a whopping one day of rest for doing anything not class related (sadly, it was spent doing research for my project) all work and no play may make one dull, but the way I see it is once I'm making cash, I can have lots of play. while at work =P

Mark-Up has to do with the chassis that you use. Look at the chassis table on pages 202-205. You'll find Mark-Up Factor right next to where it gives the Design Point cost for the chassis. I need the program to calculate cost by adding all the design points, multiplying by the mark-up, then multiplying by 100.

Ok, I see it now. Are those all the changes we need?

Rigger2.dat needs to be updated with a field added for the Mark-Up Factor. Can anyone do that/Has it already been done? I suggest we go ahead a change that file name to Chasis.dat , because that makes more sense and doesn't tie us to a particular version.

I can't open this project in VB.NET, so I'm trying to find a copy of VB6.0 to use. Should be able to get one in the next couple of days. It doesn't look like that much code really, so I'm considering a re-write.

Is there a particular reason why anyone wants this in VB?

I can take care of the DATs no problem. Thats easy to figure out, I just don't know squat about VB so I needed someone else to do the source code.

If you can just tell me the format of how to add the Mark-Up line to the DAT, I can input all the numbers.

As for renaming it to Chassis.dat, that would be fine, expect that there is more in that file than chassis. There are also the power plants and all the mods you can put into the vehicle. I guess we could do three different files, one for chassis, one for power plant, and a third for mods. What do you think?

If you want to do a rewrite, I'm fine with that, I just need an exe that can extract the info from the DATs and calculate costs.

One other DAT to keep in mind is the Quality.dat. It has factors that modify the Mark-Up value.

Right you are, I didn't look closely enough at the file.

Being a Database guy myself, I wouldn't put different datatype in one table like this, but since it is so, it'll be less work to leave it as is.

That being said, at the end of each line that is a chasis, just add a comma followed by the Mark-Up Factor.

I have found a copy of VB6 at my office, and since no one else is using it (it being as old as the hills), I have a legal license to use it even. WooHoo! Now after I get everything installed, I'll let you know if it opens fine in VB6. I hope so, because I don't have any older VB version.

Ok, I'll get to work on updating the DATs to have a Mark-Up and changing all the Design Points to Rigger 3.

Rigger 3 introduced new chassis also. Can I just imput them into the DAT or do you need to code something for them as well?

Ok, I think I completed the code, but since I never used this program before, I'm not sure. You can just substitute your Rigger2.dat, mine has incorrect values for the Mark-Up.

I don't know where this should live, so I've got it on my own website temporarily. Download it from here:
The Shop v1.4.3

The source code is included with that, and if someone wants to take ownership, please let me know.

Are there any other changes that need to be made?

Edit: I would like to add that this is some of the cleanest and best written code I've ever worked with, so Kudos for the original creators. I never knew VB code could be this nice.

Oh man, thank you so much. I'll get to work on updating the DATs and let you know how it works.

edit: actually, I'll update the bike chassis and make one real quick to see if it comes out right.

Ok, good news! I was able to get in touch with James Ojaste, the Original creator, and he was happy with the changes, so he is going to host The Shop for Rigger3 on his official The Shop Site. He is also going to make further changes to keep the application compliant with both Rigger2 or Rigger3, whichever you choose. I think the version number might be changed to 1.5.0, but I'm sure you guys can figure that out.

James Ojaste is changing Providers right now, so his new URL for The Shop is:
http://ojaste.ca/~ojastej/SR/Shop.html

Please, as you complete updating the DAT files, send them to both of us, and we'll make sure the official site has the latest copies available.
bombadil<at>oldforest.net
James.Ojaste<at>ec.gc.ca

Thanks guys, and happy RiggerSmithing!

Excelent! I tried emailing James a few days ago and didn't get a responce, but I may have been using an older address. I'll save the new DAT as Rigger3.dat when I'm done with it.

edit: Though it may take me a few days to get through it all, cause not only do I have to update the Mark-Up and Cost for every item in the DAT, but there are also a few completely new Chassis availible, not to mention new Power Plants.

Can I add new Chassis and Power Plants to the DAT without you needing to code something in for them?

I believe you should be able to just add the new items without any problems. Feel free to test it as you go with that version I posted, just to make sure.

There are also some Mods that are not in the DAT files that are in Rigger3 that I saw are missing, like the morphing License Plate, and the Electorstaic Paint that lets you change the vehicle's appearance.

Do we know if all the cost and other values are the same between the versions? I'll try to remember to make a spot check tonight when I get home. IF anyone else can spend some time letting us know which costs are differnet between the two versions of Rigger, then we can determine what to do, if there are any differences.

Let's keep the File named Rigger2.dat for the time being. If you change the name of the file, then the program will not be able to read it, so let's let James make that decision.

Good work, team.
-Mike

Actually, I already changed it to Rigger3.dat and the program reads it just fine.

Hmmm... That doesn't work for me, it gives me the error "No Chasis found". Do you have to chnge something else in another DAT file? Or is it possible that you have both files in that dirr?

You have to click on the Books options and them Manage. At that point you can tell the program what DATs to look at.

Ok, I'm running into a problem with one thing. The items in bold are confusing me:

Ground + Bike = 1 + 16 = 17
Like that? Just a wild guess...

Nope, cause that doesn't explain this:

Okay, that's just the first thing that came to mind, because those Exponential of Two tables almost always work like that. I know nothing about the program you're discussing, so no wonder I was wrong. Out.

Actually 64 (helicopter) + 8 (air) is 72, so it works fine.

Looks like the first field is separate from the second, and the second is a chassis flag, using standard boolean-bit flags...

How about that...

After going over the list I think that one is right. Cool! Thanks man.

Hey, good eye guys, that's exactly right. having those coded numbers be powers of 2 means that bitwise you can have any combination with no colusions whne adding them up. It's not how I would have done it, but it certainly works.

It looks like it's a binary code.

basically the values are setup so that the number once added do not collide.

00010010 = Helicopter
10001000 = Scooter

Pretty standard way to handle options.

Line 1164 in shop.frm is where it's used.

basically the way you use it is a binary comparison to see if the second is part of the first.

example

138 = 10001010
2 = 00000010

The binary compare will go through each bit and return a 0 if either bit is 0 and a 1 if they are both 1.

Hi guys! This is James. First off - thanks! I know a lot of people have been looking forward to a R3-compatible Shop, and my personal motivation skills suck.

Anyhow, if you've got any questions about the file formats etc, feel free to ask! I see a couple of questions already...

Firstly, the only DAT file that the Shop expects is Shop.dat. That file contains the references to the other files to load, or files that it knows not to load. It's initially seeded to load Rigger2.dat and Quality.dat.

There was also a question about what the first field of each line means; as documented in Shop.dat, the first field is a flag indicating what type of line it is (whether it's a chassis, engine, modification, or another file to load). Originally, I was using just numbers (0-3), but in a later version upgraded it to accept the more meaningful C,E,M or B; I just didn't change most of the data since I already had it in numeric format.

Each file thus doesn't really consist of a single table or a set of tables - you can interleave chassis data with engine data etc. I chose that design in order to allow for both easy parsing and (more importantly) easy data upgrades in the form of a single .dat file for any expansion books. Each source book can then occupy just one file and it becomes easy to pass them around. Too bad FASA never released much in the way of extra vehicle data...

Finally, yes, the 2nd field is a bitfield; if you need to allow mods for only a certain class of vehicles, you can add your own (keep to powers of 2), and use the bitwise operators (| and &) to check for a matching chassis.

Any other questions?

I use the NSRCG program to gen my characters and make XML to display and print them. I've noticed that the program is pretty slack on generating XML for Vehicles (It only tells the model name). I would like for us to come up with a more complete XML schema for a vehicle and propose that to McMackie, then possibly we can export stuff from The Shop to be used with the NSRCG program and have one standard print.

What do you guys think?
-Mike

A Proposal for a Shadowrun XML Standard

Wordman put this together two years ago. It's a very good set, it generisizes (sp?) enough to make it open to future changes to the game. I think mcmackie didn't like it as much, so it was never used.

That one is pretty good for a start, but it doesn't express a list of vehicle mods, unless I mis-read it.

another option McMackie and I talked about for use with Valkirie was to have an Import tab in the appropriate places and jsut import the xml from the other programs to be stored in the file and directly copied into the output when printed to xml, that way, the xsl for NSCRG would have to handle the xml output from various programs, or just ignore the stuff it didn't know... with both shop and valk, it might be the way to go...

McMackie? what do YOU think?

-Mike R...

Now that I think about it, another possiblity would be for use to place an IFRAME in our XSL that could just call for an external file to fill the IFRAME. Then The Shop or Other external programs could just make their own page of output.

I don't know, that might get complicated.

BTW, glad to hear from you Mike R, I was starting to think I had joined this forum one week too late.

I'm really looking forward to a critique of my changes to Michal K's Transform.

Question: Are you guys working towards a Rigger 3 or a Rigger 3 Revised compatible modification for The Shop?